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DREAMS OUT OF DARKNESS 



DREAMS 
OUT OF DARKNESS 

JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER 




New York B. w. huebsch, inc. Mcmxxi 



Copyright, 1921, by B.W. Huebsch, Inc. 

mlNTBD IN U. S. A. 






DEC -8 1921 



^C!.A630652 






DEDICATION 

(To Louis) 

Tate rny heart in a book; 

Take strength that is born of pain. 
And take me again and again 

In a sigh or a look. 

Joy's come — // zvill abide — 

Washed clean by univilling tears. 

I give thanks to the struggling years; 
I have grown at your side. 



For the privilege of reprinting many of the poems in this volume, 
the author thanks the editors of The Century, The Bookman, The Liber- 
ator, Poetry: A Magazine of I'erse, The Measure, The Smart Set, 
The Broom, The Literary Review, The Double Dealer, The Menorah 
Journal, "The Enchanted Years" and An American Miscellany — :i92o. 



CONTENTS 
I 

LAKE-SONG, 3 

SINFONIA DOMESTICA, 5 

ANTI-EROTIC, 7 

FROM THE ROAD IN NOVEMBER, 8 

A DEAD NUN SMILES AT TWO POETS, ID 

MIST, 13 

REBIRTH, 14 

LITTLE DIRGE, 1 6 

BERKSHIRE TWILIGHT, 1 7 

THE OLD TUNE, 1 8 

ON TEMPLES, 1 9 

THE PASSIONATE SWORD, 21 

II 

EVE BEFORE THE TREE, 25 
CHILD AT A CONCERT, 37 
A SOLDIER LISTENS, 39 



CONTENTS 
TO A WAR POET, 4 1 
THE QUARREL, 42 

FROM THE DAY-BOOK OF A FORGOTTEN PRINCE, 43 
AN OBLIGATO TO BRAHMS, 46 
LULLABY FOR A MAN-CHILD, 48 
TWO AND A CHILD, 49 
THE ALTAR, 50 
GOTHIC, 51 

III 

BLUE BOOK-ROUTE 121, 55 

NEW TRIBUTES, 56 

GLIMPSE IN AUTUMN, 58 

APRIL CONCEIT, 59 

FORGET-ME-NOTS, 60 

TAKE YOUR HAND OFF MY THROAT, BEAUTY I 62 

IV 
DURING DARKNESS, 65 

THREE DREAMS 

I. THE SILVER YOKE, 67 

II. LOVE AND ART, 70 

III. THE HOLY BAND, 72 



LAKE-SONG 

The lapping of lake water 
Is like the weeping of women, 
The weeping of ancient women 
Who grieved without rebellion. 

The lake falls over the shore 
Like tears on their curven bosoms. 
Here is languid, luxurious wailing, 
The wailing of kings' daughters. 

So do we ever cry, 

A soft, unmutinous crying, 

When we know ourselves each a princess 

Locked fast within her tower. 



[3] 



The lapping of lake water 
Is like the weeping of women, 
The fertile tears of women 
That water the dreams of men. 



[4] 



SINFONIA DOMESTICA 

When the white wave of a glory that is hardly I 
Breaks through my mind and washes it clean, 

I know at last the meaning of my ecstasy, 

And know at last my wish and what it can 
mean. 

To have sped out of life that night — to have 
vanished 
Not as a vision, but as something touched, 
yet grown 
Radiant as the moonlight, circling my naked 
shoulder; 
Wrapped in a dream of beauty, longed for, 
but never known! 



[5] 



For how with our daily converse, even the sweet 
sharing 
Of thoughts, of food, of home, of common 
life. 
How shall I be that glory, that last desire 

For which men struggle? Is Romance in 
a wife? 

Must I bend a heart that is bowed to breaking 
With a frustration, inevitable and slow. 

And bank my flame to a low hearth-fire, believing 
You'll come for warmth and life to its 
tempered glow? 

Shall I mould my hope anew, to one of service, 
And tell my uneasy soul "Behold, this is 
good." 
And meet you (if we do meet) even at Heaven's 
threshold 
With ewer and basin, with clothing and with 
food? 



[6] 



ANTI-EROTIC 

Hold me so and press my head 
Close to your shoulder with a gentle hand; 
And do not wonder that this mild caress 
Dearer to me than all your passion is. 

For passion one can have from many men. 
When a woman flames to the new life of Spring, 
Men read the ardor and the dreaming in her eyes 
As tributes to themselves — and burn to her. 

But to be cherished aS a child is cherished, 
To be held as something incredibly dear, 
This is liis.e the delicate hopes of childhood, 
Like waking from December into a sun-sweet 
May. 



[7] 



FROM THE ROAD IN NOVEMBER 

Is death like this: 

The slow and quiet chill 

That creeps up from the ground 

And wraps the listless hands, 

That numbs the closed lips and the drooping 

eyes 
That open to gaze wishless 
On shallow banks of snow? 

To hear without thrill or sadness 

The sounds of twilight, 

The soft snap of breaking twigs, 

The distant baying of a dog, 

Winds urging on uncovered leaves, 

And a little stream 

That tattles incongruously of summer . . . 

[8] 



To realize the slant of shadowy hills, 
To look again at the lighted house 
Shutting in one's beloved . . . 
And then to turn to the dark fields, 
To go willingly into the deep sepulchre of 
night. 



[9] 



A DEAD NUN SMILES AT TWO 
POETS 

The sun was smiling lazy smiles 

And crinkling all the winter weather; 

He planted Spring for miles and miles 
And drew two women friends together. 

Each sauntered from her separate hill 

And, when they met, walked by the river, 

Discussing modern love until 

Their pliant hearts began to quiver. 

"Now Art impinges on our lives 

And complicates our strange position; 
We baulk at being maids or wives. 

Intolerant of all tradition." 

[lo] 



"Oh, had I lived in Sappho's time, 

Then Beauty had its proper setting! . . 

"Ah yes, or in old Egypt's prime — " 

Parried the other, tense and fretting. 

The sun with manly mischief beamed 
Upon each brow till it grew moister; 

He meant to force these two, it seemed, 
Into a cool, adjacent cloister. 

And through a crack in its dim room 

He touched a spot, with shining finger, 

Where, smiling even on her tomb, 

A sleeping lady made them linger. 

With hands that clasped a rigid cross, 
She, who forswore both Art and Eros, 

Now drily seemed to mourn the loss 

Of what had made her life a hero's. 



[II] 



She, who withstood the chill routine 

And smothered all her warring fires, 

Seemed from the past to intervene 

And smile at their perturbed desires. 

They held communion there, these two. 
With wisdom hidden from the sages, 

And from their carven sister drew 

A solace, strengthened by the ages. 

So from this cryptic face and keen, 

Each woman carried curious trophies; 

Bearing them through her life unseen. 
To flaunt them only in her strophes. 



[12] 



MIST 

There is a mist over this lake. 
It shrouds the colors and the sounds as well; 
It is wrapped over the hills like a strong veil 
It blurs the patterns that the pine-trees make, lace- 
woven over the sky. 

Old Sun, you can not pierce it; 
As I look at you, you seem no more than a brightly- 
cloudy glass sphere. 
Little birds, your chirring is dull , . . 
A cow-bell, clanking in the woods, 
Has the muffled music of minor thirds. 

Oh mist, you have lessened everything. 

Even my longing is choked within my breast; 

I can find no song for it. 

[13] 



REBIRTH 

Let us lay aside the memories of old love 

Like the garments of our childhood. 

They have a beauty and young grace, 

But they do not fit us any more. 

We have grown bigger and we shall be clothed 

In a grandeur fitting our destiny. 

You have found me and I you, 

And all the bright and ragged past 

Is gone. 

Not through passion or delight 

Nor by an easy way. 

But through red pain and struggle, sanctified by 

tears, 
You have come — 

Not to me but to what I stand for. 
You have revealed my godhead to me 

[14] 



And by reverence have given me my heritage. 
Now I can bear with you and for you, 
Since you have found me 
Woman — and Holy. 



[15] 



LITTLE DIRGE 

As hearts have broken, let young hearts break; 

Let slow feet tread a measure feet have trod 
before. 
There gleams a pathway I shall never take; 

Here dies a grief will trouble me no more. 

Only swift feet may overtake desire, 

Only young hearts can soar. 
My goal is beckoning from a safe hearth-fire; 

My youth is slipping out the door. 



[i6] 



BERKSHIRE TWILIGHT 

These autumn hills have their sadness. 
So have I, 

When a shadow crosses my spirit 
And I neither live nor die. 

Evening drops over their peaks 
And chars their flame. 
Their color sifts into grayness. 
With me it is the same. 



[17] 



THE OLD TUNE 

I PRAY thee send thy arrows, Spring! 
I'll court and welcome every sting; 
Thy silver javelins of rain 
That prick my lethargy to pain. 
Behold, I let my garments slip 
And bare me to thy windy whip. 
Nor care if thy approach be rude 
So that thou pierce my torpitude. 
See, I am bound in ice and frost, 
A frozen thing, and well-nigh lost. 
O quicken thou my blood again, 
Though it be ecstasy of pain. 
Thy keenest thrust I beg thee give 
Only that I may know I live. 



[i8] 



ON TEMPLES 

Tell me : 

Why do men make crypts of stone 

To snare a living God? 

Has he not made him for his own 

A temple far more beautiful, 

Whose ceiling is no static blue, 

And the walls of which shine with no 

ephemeral gilt, 
But are fashioned of quivering green 
That fades only to bloom again. 
Even as the word of the Lord? 

And tell me: 

Do these bought singers reach his favor? 
And is his ear arrested by these paid praises? 
Or are they not as hired mourners 

[19] 



Whose wailings measure the purse not the 
pulse of the bereaved? 

Is there no real singer among us? 

Is there no one who must celebrate our 

hungers and our feastings 
And make a mellow music for God? 
And is there no dancer who, with leaping joy 

and drooping sorrow, 
Will show our state to the eyes of our Father? 
And are there not many — yea, millions — 
Who will make living works 
That will invite the Almighty 
So that he will come down and dwell in them? 



[20] 



THE PASSIONATE SWORD 

Temper my spirit, oh Lord, 

Burn out its alloy. 
And make it a pliant steel for thy wielding. 

Not a clumsy toy; 
A blunt, iron thing in my hands 

That blunder and destroy. 

Temper my spirit, oh Lord, 

Keep it long in the fire; 
Make it one with the flame. Let it share 

That up-reaching desire. 
Grasp it, Thyself, oh my God; 

Swing it straighter and higher! 



[21] 



II 



EVE BEFORE THE TREE 

PROLOGUE OF LIGHT: 

JJ^e are the spears of light — piercing, stabbing. 
The ribbands of sun are ^ve — swaying, blinding. 
lie free the cloud-swaddled earth ; we float 
Through darkness. JVe dazzle as the morning, 
JJ e press you, Eve, we push you foruvird. 
Oh, Eve, we bewilder your eyes. 

EVE 

It is so cold. The little winds of dawn 

Clutch at me when I pass as though 

The chilly fingers of a child unborn 

Would check my purpose. Rather had I stayed 

Comforted and close in Adam's arms, 

Had not a hunger keener than the flesh 

[25] 



Driven me here. 

I am so young and so afraid, 
Yet do as I must do . . . 
The light here is so green and gray 
And the bulging trees seem more like lowering 

monsters 
Than the friendly shelters of the day — 
All except this that glows and trembles 
And beckons with pale fire. 

VOICES OF darkness: 

Eve, Eve, withhold your hand; 

Slacken the bridle on your mind', 
We dwell in comfort beneath the land; 

We need no awakening. We are blind. 

Eve, Eve, we beg you turn. 

The answer that you hope to find 
Inhabits not what you must spurn. 

We live by darkness. Oh, Eve, be kind! 

EVE 
I AM so young and so untried; 
[26] 



So new in a finished, moving world, 
So haunted by a dream that will not shape 
And so tormented by a blind desire . . . 
And yet I hesitate to lift my hand, 
To gather and eat of the Tree. 

My life began with Adam. If there was life 

before, 
I have forgotten it, nor can remember 
Father nor mother, sister, nurse nor friend. 
I was born woman, shaped for one design : 
As mate for Adam, treasury of his love ; 
And to this purpose gladly consecrate 
Whatever worth I have. 

All vibrant loveliness that the cozening pools 
Tell me at every visit I possess. 
These for his rapture, his repose. 
And the deep-swelling tenderness that stirs 
All of my being when I look at him, 
Gazing in wonder on his garden world, 
Or lying so exposed in sleep 
To the prying, envious elements. 

[27] 



VOICES OF THE WATER: 

Eva, Eva, Earth's troubled daughter, 
We come from the troubled depths of water. 
There where the sources of life increase, 
We know you can never hope for peace. 

Eve, though we come to you unbidden, 
The secrets of life in us are hidden. 
The apple will bring yoki no release; 
Eva, your yearning will never cease. 

EVE 
AXD yet I falter and of late I go 
With doubt and sadness to love's ritual, 
Fearing the puzzling aftermath 
When Adam sleeps, detached from love a^d me, 
Somehow made free and separate 
By that which binds me closer every day. 
How many nights I lay on the soft earth 
And watched with uneasy heart the arching 

moon 
Make her slow progress to the sky's deep couch. 
How blanched I felt, how full of quivering 

emptiness. 

[28] 



My wish reached out like vanquishing arms 
To grasp and know some stabler mood, 
Some firmer, more accessible ground 
Whence I could understand, admit 
And reconcile this difference in our love. 

When I first woke in this delightful close, 

Adam was bending over me, his eager eyes, 

Rapt with a selfless worship, searched my soul. 

His face, then, was my world — and all 

The later, lesser miracles of earth 

Were pale delights after Delight had gone. 

In that first wakening I beheld 
Neither the feathered sky cut through 
With glittering dagger-shaft of sun. 
Nor the nobility of trees, nor flowery mazes. 
Nor was there bird-song, nor the ease of grass 
Nor the faint poignance of falling water — 
Just Adam's face shone down on me ; 
Adam's dark face, that battleground. 
Where all emotions strove with one another. 
Worship, possession, tenderness and pain, 
[29] 



And, last, the supplication of a needy child. 
This was the confirmation of my being, 
Binding me to him with an unseen thong; 
Charging my new-born soul with swelling 

power. 
Strong to endure through tossed eternity. 

VOICES OF WARNING ANGELS: 

£i'rt . . . Eva . . . Eva . . . 
JFe call you in supplication. 
Eva . . . Eva . . . Eva . . . 
Ou7- wings beat a warning thunder. 
Eva . . . Eva . . . Eva . . . 
Down from our heavenly station. 
Forsaking realms of wonder, 
Hear us beseech you, woman: 
Lift not your hand to touch/ 
A curse is on that human 
Who seeks to learn too much. 

EVE 
Then Adam touched with timid hand 
The rippling mantle of my silken hair 

[30] 



And with a cry, half sob, half clarion, 

Gathered me up and held me to his breast 

With a tenderer, more reverential touch 

Than that he gives to flow^ers. 

Forth with sweet, cautioning words 

He led me through this tangled green. 

Naming for me the beasts and flowers. 

The birds, the insects and the trees, 

But warned me with a sidelong, shivering glance 

Of these curved branches through whose silvery 

leaves 
A rosy apple swayed and seemed to sing. 
And Adam whispered, "O beware, my love. 
Of the forbidden fruit of secret knowledge. 
For thus to me a rigid word was spoken 
In lonely days before you came to help me." 

VOICES OUT OF EDEN: 

Eve . . . Eve . . . Eve . . . 
Fateful woman, groping child, 
Paradise holds its breath. Perceive 
The milky dove, the lion wild; 

[31] 



The innocent and undefiled 

Beseech and call yo)u. Hearken and leave, 

Leave them their world untouched and mild. 

EVE 
All through an idle season that was summer, 
Day after day and hour after hour, 
Adam was weaned from all his former wonder, 
Having one thought — and that to be my lover. 
The beasts were calling from neglected jungles, 
The birds were wooing him from unseen branches. 
The blossoms taunted with provoking perfumes. 
But Adam only turned to my embraces. 
And I was there to start and still his hunger, 
To be his playmate and his soothing mother, 
His lighted torch, his sweetly quenching water. 
And I had joy while love held us encircled 
As stars are bound within one constellation, 
Until I felt a new life move within me 
And heard the summons of the generations. 

Then gradually as the vigilant sun 
Relaxes his regard when night comes on, 

[32] 



Adam began to let his glances stray 

Back to the world he knew before I came: 

To court the indolent animals, 

To mock the birds and hold discourse with these, 

To finger curiously some new-found plant 

Or gaze at his reflection in a brook. 

Then when his tedium became too great 

And when the pleasures of the day grew stale, 

Adam would come where I awaited him, 

Rehearsing his adventures one by one 

And, with the accustomed hand and voice of love, 

Awake those ardours in me that so lightly sleep, 

Till soul and body yielded — and enthralled 

I saw beyond the borders of this world . . . 

Clouds etched with running lightning smote my eyes ; 

Infinitely stretched out beneath my feet; 

Glories undreamed of in my calmer hours 

Caught me and swept me into heaven itself. 

Palpitant and rapturous through the night. 

But Adam drank his cup of ecstasy 

In one quick draught as a parched traveller would 

So over-eager for the olifered joy, 

So headlong, he could scarcely savour it. 

[33] 



And then completed but left unimpaired, 
Unscathed by that all-too-smiting blast, 
Turned sighing softly from my restless arms 
And slept — and left me to my chafing dreams. 

VOICES OF GROWING THINGS: 

By the moist ground, by the humid air, 

We are nurtured. 

From the dumb seed, the stolid root. 

We are (fuickened. 

From the unconscious egg iji\e are warmed and 

brought forth. 
From the mother, eager and dreaming, we are 

delivered . . . 
Therefore, Eve, young mother of nations. 
You, who shall be the symbol of all women, 
Bravest and most distressed of womankind, 
Courage, courage in your fervent seeking. 
Lift up your hand and rend the darkness. Eve. 

EVE 
Oh voices that compel my restive mind. 
Are you my multiple selves confusing me? 

[34] 



Stray forces that must band themselves in one 
Against the sinuous thought that tempts me so? 
Enough. Let be. The way is suddenly clear. 
A twisting pathway straightens at my feet; 
My fate is beckoning from out the Tree. 
My soul is set and nothing stays my hand. 
I have come here, not for myself alone, 
But for my children that shall follow me. 
Not to know all, for that was never planned — 
But to be welded in a common fire, 
A white-hot radiance that will fuse 
All of our rending differences, and bind 
All men and women in the years to come. 
For Adam's nature and my own, dear God, 
Are different in ways beyond my sense, 
And I can see frustration in his eyes 
When I give voice to that which troubles me. 
And though an unknown curse may fall on me, 
Though endless punishments wait even now, 
For puzzled generations I must know 
What parts us even in the hour of love. 
When flesh united to dear flesh is swept, 
Surging in what should be a binding flood 

[35] 



Into aloof and separate mountain peaks — 
Sundered and cool and alien, each to each. 

Darkness and trouble close about me now; 
But through the clouds, bewildered voices sound. 
From the dreamed future they are urging me . . . 
Let fall the burning sword, for I must know! 

PROPHETIC chorus: 

The deed is done and is not done; 
The fruit is tasted, the search begun. 
Knowledge is yours and yet you do not know. 
New Eves will come and hunger, even so; 
Through coSuntless centuries, a restless will 
Shall drive new women toward fresh goals until, 
In their instinctive wisdom, they will find 
Knowledge can never be an end designed 
But lies in searching. IVomen w\ill ever grope 
For that which buds and ripens in their hope. 
And though the fruit of knowledge is not sweet, 
Eve, it is good that you — and they — should eat. 



[36] 



CHILD AT A CONCERT 

SONATA, F MINOR. BEETHOVEN 

{For Richa rd Bith lig ) 

Between that child's face seen half in shadow, 

Where the dim lights touch into soft radiance 

The rondure of temple, cheek and chin, — 

Between that grave face, 

As gently moulded as a melody, 

What bond is there with the tumultuous sound 

That burns and storms and rushes through this hall? 

The child never stirs. 

She is as unshaken as a marble Muse, 

And under the artist's fingers. 

From his fixed eye, through tensely breathing lips, 

The Apassionata seems to surge ; 

[37] 



To catch up in a divine rage 

These shaken men and women, 

A mocking giant careless of their fears — 

A wielder of water, earth and air — 

A scourger with brands of war — 

A shimmering healer — 

A cradling, compassionate God. . . . 

And when the music dies away 

And blinking faces shake ofif their awe, 

Amid the bustle of departing crowds, 

The child sits, 

Lonely, grave, composed: 

Moved and unmoving. 



[38] 



A SOLDIER LISTENS 

(To Siegfried Sassoon) 

What was it came to distress you? 
Who from the restless dead? 
As you sat in the slanting shadows 
With a heavy head. 

The music pressed in among us, 
Almost too much — 
You quivered and seemed to be startled 
By a known touch. 

Even when healing cadences 
Reached out to you, 
Your face looked broken in pieces, 
Shot through and through. 

[39] 



As you sat in the slanting shadows 
With a heavy head, 
What was it came to distress you? 
Who from the clamoring dead? 



[40] 



TO A WAR POET 

I STAND before your grief with hanging, futile 

hands — 
And long to bring you healing, piteous youth; 
Yet here the matter stands — 
You must plow other lands. 

These planted bones will bear no flower, 
For you have garnered all their truth. 
Go — in another place, another hour, 
Find a new power! 



[41] 



THE QUARREL 

Why do you bring night into the room, 

And why do you hurt me, you two, 

With your heavy words that thud and thud 

And blur the afternoon? 

What avail your dark hatreds; 

What golden bonds will follow after? 

See how artless joy signals a truce! 
For swifter than your racing angers, 
Piercing the gloom your stubborn hearts created, 
My pagan canary sends his yellow-bannered song, 
Silencing your hate . . . 



[42] 



FROM THE DAY-BOOK OF A 
FORGOTTEN PRINCE 

My father is happy or we should be poor, 
His gateway is wide and the folk of the moor 
Come singing so gaily right up to the door. 

We live in a castle that's dingy and old; 
The casements are broken, the corridors cold; 
The larder is empt>', the cook is a scold. 

But father can dance and his singing is loud. 
From meadow and highway there's always a crowd 
That gathers to hear him, and this makes him proud. 

Hg roars out a song in a voice that is sweet. 
Of grandeur that's gone, rare viands to eat, 
And treasure that used to be laid at his feet. 

He picks up his robe, faded, wrinkled and torn. 
Though banded in ermine, moth-eaten and worn, 
And held at the throat by a twisted old thorn. 

[43] 



He leaps in the air with a rickety grace 

And a kingly old smile illumines his face, 

While he fondles his beard and stares off into space. 

The villagers laugh, then look quickly away. 
And some of them kneel in the orchard to pray. 
I often hear whispers: "The old king is fey!" 

But after they're gone, we shall find, if you please, 
White loaves and a pigeon and honey and cheese. 
And wine that we drink while I sit on his knees. 

And then, while he sups, he will feed me and tell 
Of Mother, whom men used to call "The Gazelle," 
And of glorious times before the curse fell. 

At last he will sink, half-asleep, to the floor; 
The rafters will echo his quivering snore . . . 
I go to find cook, through the slack, oaken door. 

******* 



[44] 



My father is happy or we should be poor; 
His gateway is wide and the folk of the moor 
Come singing so gaily right up to the door. 



[45] 



AN OBLIGATO TO BRAHMS 

What is there in that group which moves me so? 
It's commonplace, I realize all that. 
A woman with a child on either side ; 
The mother, spectacled and fat. 

The girl leans over, woman-wise so soon, 
Alert and following the rolling themes 
Her mother's finger traces. But the boy 
Leans back, lost in his own dear dreams. 

The mother rests the score upon her lap 
And guides her daughter as the chords recur, 
And when her son begins to droop, her arm 
Curves out and draws him close to her. 



[46] 



Her arm is thick and unsymmetrical 
And has no beauty known to song or art. 
Yet that and music, dear — it is too much! 
Take me away — it breaks my heart. 



[47] 



LULLABY FOR A MAN-CHILD 

The mountains waver through my tears, 

Hush, my son — 

The trees are bending at the knees 

Like women broken by the years. 

But you, my child, need have no fears; 

Only for Woman, love has spears. 

Sleep, my son. 

So cuddle closer to my heart. 
Dream, my son — 

'Tis strange to think that you find peace 
Here, where all stormy passions start. 
But you need fear no ache or smart — 
The pain is always woman's part. 
Sleep, my son. 

[48] 



TWO AND A CHILD 

Does the Spring night call little boys 

As it calls their wild young mothers? 

But what can a child know of us — or others — 

He has different joys. 

A tree that bends and almost smothers 

Two in the road who clasp and quiver, 

To him is only a swing by the river — 

One of his outdoor toys. 

Put him to bed and let us flee 

Out in the night with other lovers. 

It will not be long till he discovers 

What's known to you and me. 

And then when a destined maiden hovers 

Near for what only he can give her . . . 

No! Close the door. What makes me shiver? 

I will stay here. Let me be. 

[49] ■ 



THE ALTAR 

There were estrangements on the road of love: 
Betrayals and false passions, angers, lusts. 
There were keen nights and sated noons and trusts 
Grudgingly given and held light to prove 
Your self-sufficiency, your manhood's dower, 
And mockery at my faith, — my single power. 

There were renewals all along the way, 
Of pledges and of weeping, new delights. 
But no new meaning till that night of nights 
You groped beyond to where my meaning lay. 
And when you knelt to me you found me kneeling, 
Proud of love's pain and humble to its healing. 



[50] 



GOTHIC 

Think not, my dearest, though I love to speak 
With windy pride about the rock I use 
To build with — oh, think not I would refuse 

The gargoyles of your fancy. Every bleak 

Cornice, and every archway I now seek 

To have them softened with your arabesques, 
Your graceful, happy scrollery on desks 

On altars, lecterns, niches and on pews. 

Though I may labor with a fervor that 

Is mediiPval in its piety, 
Completion finds my temples gaunt and flat, 
Cold and erect. But in satiety 

Of sternness, I must turn to you, I find, 
To ornament the Gothic of my mind. 

[51] 



Ill 



.Q 



BLUE BOOK— ROUTE 121 

There were sights to be seen at the flaming end of 

summer 
As we sped over the land like a flying scarf : 
The kindled braziers of the mountain-ash 
Swinging their wild greetings from tame door-yards ; 
Gypsy-dressed zinnias, spinsters in masquerade; 
The tidy farmer, raking his first brush fire, 
Himself an angular shadow beside its supple 

aliveness; 
Obliging cows, arranging themselves in pleasing 

groups 
Over the stone-sprinkled meadows; 
Sun-bleached spread of a hill 
And sun-dyed tapestry of an apple-tree; 
Obsequious sun himself, Sum.mer's gifted servant — 
All these came running to the roadside 
With mocking gestures of farewell. 

[55] 



NEW TRIBUTES 

Farewell, you country beauties, 

For the first time I have been your lover; 

At last I know^ your perfections 

And my heart leans back and lingers after me. 

I'll give you tributes every one. 

Not only to you, staunch hills ruffled in green, 

Nor just to you, sly lake that quivers with hidden 

laughter, 
But to the powdered blueberry as well 
That flirts so primly with the passer-by. 

Golden-glow, I salute your aggressive yellow; 
I like the natural way you flaunt yourselves. 
Scythe-swing of the golden Sun 
That swathes the whole world into a glittering 
bundle; 

[56] 



And even your magic, Moon, you impostor, 

Who look so young, although we know you old; 

Low-humming bee and fidgety grasshopper. 

And sandy sash of road — 

For each your praises, 

For I take something from all of you. 

I go freighted with beauty 

And stagger with wonder 

Under a new burden. 



[57] 



GLIMPSE IN AUTUMN 

Ladies at a ball 

Are not so fine as these 

Richly brocaded trees 
That decorate the fall. 

They stand against a wall 

Of crisp October sky, 

Their plumed heads held high, 
Like ladies at a ball. 



[58] 



APRIL CONCEIT 

Can this be Spring that floats such shadowy veils? 
And what procession does she head? 
And are the showery whitened apple-trees 
The bouquets of a bride, about to be wed? 

And are those dark hills standing in a row 
The black-frocked ushers in her train? 
And can it be the bride is sad this year 
And hangs back weeping? What else, then, is the 
rain? 



[59] 



FORGET-ME-NOTS 

(For Amy Lowell) 

We walked through garden closes 

Languidly, with dragging Sunday feet, 

And passed down a long pleached alley, 

And could remember, as one remembers in a fairy 

tale, 
Ladies in brocade, and lovers, and musk. 
We surprised tall dahlias 
That shrugged and turned scarlet faces to the breeze. 

Further still we sauntered under old trees, that 

bended with such a dignity 
But hardly acknowledged our passing 
Until at last — (and it was like a gift, 
A treasure lifted from a dream of the past) 
We came to a pond banded in lindens. 

[60] 



The bank curved under its crown of forget-me-nots; 

They shone like blue jewels from the further shore. 

And they were free! I could have had them all 

To gather and to carry in my arms! 

But I took only a few, 

Seven blue gems, 

To set in the gold of my memory. 



[6i] 



TAKE YOUR HAND OFF MY 
THROAT, BEAUTY! 

Take your hand off my throat, Beauty; 

Loose your clutch! 

Unchain these prisoner-tears; 

Let my crowded heart be dispossessed of its burden. 

Why do you waylay me at such unsuspected corners? 

Why blind and choke me 

And lay your lash over my shoulders? 

Release me and tell me calmly your bidding. 

Let me go whole and unhampered 

To carry out your commands. 

Beauty, 

Take your hand off my throati 



[62] 



IV 



DURING DARKNESS 

Take me under thy wing, O Death, 

I am tired, I am cold. 

Take me under thy wing, O great, impartial bird ; 

Take me, carry me hence 

And let me sleep. 

For the soil that was once so sweet is sour with rotting 

dead; 
The air is acrid with battle fumes; 
And even the sky is obscured by the cannon's smoke. 
Beauty and Peace — where are they? 
They have gone, and to what avail? 
The mountains stand where the mountains stood, 
And the polluted seas boil in the selfsame basin, 
Unconcerned. 



[65] 



The beast in man is again on the trail, 

Swinging his arms and sniffing the air for blood. 

And what was gentle, 

What bore fruit with patient pain, is gone. 

Take me under thy wing, 
O Death. 



[66] 



THREE DREAMS 

I — THE SILVER YOKE 

I GROW sick; I grov; fainter and fainter 
With picking out a footing 
Among these tiny crags 
That seem made of lava 
Not wholly cooled. 

Fainter and frightened; 

Apprehensive of evil. 

What end threatens? 

What doom— demeaned— degraded? 

I see dwarfed men, 
Bald and ignoble, 
The color of worms; 
They glide into byways 

As a worm glides. 

[67] 



I follow; I am drawn after; 
Caught in a sick spell. 
Through me, who may be blighted? 
I follow; I am drawn after. . . . 

And in a tent 

Of dusky velvet folds 

I stand aghast. 

Rage rends me with a purpose! 

A maiden lies helpless, 

A naked maiden whose hair swirls down from 

her plaintive head 
Like wilful golden rivers; 
A maiden whose tender shoulders are held down 
Under a yoke of beaten silver, 
While leering, wormlike men 
Feel of her flesh and bargain for her beauty 
With low and horrible cries. 



[68] 



Anger splits me apart. 

I am a cloud — a gale — 

An avenging storm! 

O worms, you are dead. 

O maiden, I bring you a cleaner doom! 



[69] 



II— LOVE AND ART 

I LEFT the place where one had sung, 

Misusing music 

By placing herself before the song. 

And anger at mankind 

Battled with a reverence 

That music, which is holy. 

Wakes in the listening breast. 

One of a murmuring crowd, 
I walked down the long hill. 
Hurt and yet eager; 
Throbbing to offer myself 
As servitor to all I loved. 
And at the foot of the modern road 
Stood an arch, vast and ancient. 
And a voice in the shadow bade me look through it; 
A finger, long, lean and grey pointed back. 

[70] 



I saw a landscape, mellow and magnificent, 

Rising into the sky. 

Rolling pastures, fit for the flocks of Lebanon; 

Temples singing in the sun ; 

Purple rivers, companioned by trees 

That praised God by their symmetry. 

And I thought to myself : 

This is the Past. 

But the voice in the shadow said: 

"This is Art. 

This is not for you." 

And again the finger pointed. . . . 

I fell into a great weeping. 

Unwillingly I turned and going further 

I saw chalked on a naked hoarding 

A crude sum: 

"Love minus Art = Wife." 

And I followed, with withering resignation, 

To a place where I knew you waited. 

[71] 



Ill— THE HOLY BAND 

It was evening and the light was golden, 

Golden on the furry pasture, 

Golden where a russet bantam 

Drew with straining curve his supper 

From the gilded, gleaming udder 

Of a cow in golden shadow. 

I bade you look, 

For I was half ashamed 

Of this disarray of nature 

In the golden flood of evening. 

We walked together, you and I, 

To where blue-robed and stately women 

Moved to unsung chants 

Toward a bidden destination. 

[72] 



And loaves and honey 

Were laid out in holy whiteness 

Along their assured path. 

And you would have eaten, 

But I bade you stay your hand, 

Too blithe for piety. 

And I was swept along 

As by a command, a sweet hearkening; 

Easily cleaving the swaying band 

Till I was leader — light and elated; 

Balanced and propelled by a rhythm 

Of myself and not of myself. 

I moved as a ship or a bird ; 

And yet earch footstep left its image 

Graven in the hallowed rock. 

On . . . on . . . till the walls were mirrors 

And I saw, not myself, but a greater self, 

Re-formed, transfigured, made secure; 

Firm . . . and free. 

And at last we came to the end 

And I stood before bronzed doors, 

Waiting for confirmation. 



The doors swung back with the hum of rolling major 

chords. 
And I saw a patriarch teaching a child, 
A patriarch suffused in washes of light 
From high, unending casements. 
He lifted his capped head 
And nodded it, ponderous and shapely. 
He looked at me as at one who is known and 

expected — 
And gave assent by a grave gesture. 

Joy welled up in my heart, 
Stronger than light. 
Stronger than water, 
As strong as song! 
And I turned back 
With tears as hallelujahs, 
Back to the elder women. 



[74] 



GROWING PAINS 
By Jean Starr Untermeyer 

"Jean Starr Untermeyer is a poet by the grace of God. . . . Here is 
no sentimentality, but a great power of emotion. It is a strong thing, 
this poetry, and all through the book the reader has the feeling of being 
set in 'a high, clean place.' . . . Here we have a poetry of absolutely 
direct speech, but direct speech so suffused and heightened that it 
attains high distinction and a stark perception of beauty." 

Amy Lowell in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 



"The words come as though the poet were engraving each of them 
in the 'stubborn rock' of which she speaks in that poem which begins 
her book; these poems have a sculpturesque quality. There is struggle 
in them — and a hard, unexultant, chiseled victory. . . . This new dis- 
content is a demand by women, not upon us, but upon themselves!" 

Flo\T) Dell in The Liberator 



"In the first collection of the verse of Jean Starr Untermeyer we 
have that union of hardness and intensity of the intellect that defines 
and separates, and love that fuses, which is implicit in Pater's phrase. 
Here are verses as clear-cut as a quartz crystal .... but there are 
rounded as well as crystal-edged poems here, too. . . . There is no 
bathos or sentimentality here. All of these poems are clean-cut, in many 
of them passion and precision are one. ... In all there is individual 
and beautiful rhythm." 

Llewellyn Jones in Chicago Evening Post 



"Here are 'no songs for an idle lute.' If this seems a bold state- 
ment, an examination of the poems gives it validity. . . . The power 
of investing vulgar experience with beauty is patent in the color and 
odorous pungency of 'Autumn'; in 'On the Beach' with its sure re- 
surgent cadences; in 'Spring,' perhaps the most sustained poem in the 
book, certainly one of the most penetrating" 

Babette Deutsch in The Dial 



"Groiving Pains is a book as vigorous as it is winning. Mrs. Unter- 
meyer writes with artlessness most accomplished. . . . Only a very 
sure hand could have managed such subjects as 'The Bed' or 'Possession' 
without ringing cracked bells." 

Orrjck Johns in Reedy's Mirror 



"I should say that it was something of a technical achievement to 
be as clear, as lyrical, as emotional, as simple as Jean Starr Unter- 
meyer has been in this volume of verse. . . . The modern woman 
giving — and possessing — her soul!" 

Florence Kiper Frank in Chicago Daily Netus 



"Her dependence is upon the utmost simplicity; a naivete, almost 
primitiveness, and yet she achieves excellent effects and displays a 
genuinely poetical imagination." 

H. L. Menckem in The Smart Set 



'Growing Pains is more than a promise of abundant yield." 

The Ne<w York Times 



"This is youth monumentalized — the growing pains of all ardent and 
poetic creatures, voiced and made articulate, in beauty and ugliness, 



in pain and in delight. There are few things here that we can not 
read often — so Iteen is the consciousness, so poignant the emotion, and 
so highly proper the form." 

Louisville Evening Post 



"The 'granite strength' is what one stands amazed at in these 
poems. . . But the severity is not without loveliness, the loveliness 
that bronze has of light and shadow. . . Mrs. Untermeyer brings 
things together; she merges, fuses, makes a meeting-place in her vision 
of currents, ideas and emotions, and they become one stream, one body 
of vital and significant s.vmbol." 

W. S. Braithwaite in Boston Evening Transcript 



"Jean Starr Untermeyer's work possesses intensity tempered with 
honesty and dignity .... but there is nothing of the neurotic in her 
intensity. It comes from strength and womanliness. . . . This poetry 
is real; it is free from petty conventionalities. More than that, it has 
the divine fire of a genuine inspiration." 

Frank V. Anderson in The Modern School 



"Mrs. Untermeyer writes woman poetry — intense, colorful, vivid. 
She says things that sing in the heart and make pictures there. She 
is simple, frank and thought-provoking; a woman and writer of both 
courage and imagination." 

Chicago Herald and Examinrr 



"There are many essential praises to be given Mrs. Untermeyer's 
volume. . . . There is the spirit of a true artist throughout. The de- 
votion to beauty, to the perfect phrase, is evident. . . . Every page shows 
the hand of the conscientious artist, planning, shaping, slighting nothing." 

Geoffrey Parsons in Neiu York Tribune 



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